Last Thursday, a headline skittered across
the Associated Press newswire, boasting to the world: "Man's
apartment encased in aluminum foil." The dateline was Olympia,
Washington and the story concerned a man who spent New Year's Eve covering
his best friend's apartment entirely in tin foil.

Inital reaction: Amazing.

But was this another lame exercise in the new and already tiring "Punk'd"
era? As our exclusive photographs show, the madness went much deeper.
The prank took five days to complete and foil was used to cover everything
in the apartment -- down to the quarters in the coin jar, the casings
of each CD -- and suddenly, an innocuous joke is magnified into speed
freak Warhol Factory-like proportions.

BT: How much time did you have to strategize and complete this
little operation?

LT: We only had five days to work, starting from 1 a.m. New Year's
Day until 6 p.m. on Jan. 5th when Chris returned. Several people helped,
so it probably took around 200 to 300 hours. His apartment is small, and
it only took around 4,000 square feet.

BT: To ward off any inquiries from psychiatrists who may come
across this piece, please tell me you didn't do this alone.

LT: I was helped by close friends and neighbors of Chris. In the
last couple of days we realized that it wasn't going to be finished on
time, so we started recruiting neighbors for a couple hours each. We tried
to keep it to people that Goose knew well. There were a few exceptions,
like girlfriends and neighbors. We even had a couple on their first date
work for a while.

BT: Very Tom Sawyer of you.

LT: I ended up putting in the most hours, because I slept there.

BT: Did you sleep in foil?

LT: Not *in* foil. I left the bed uncovered. Surrounded, though.
It eventually stopped seeming surreal by the end.

BT: What was the hardest thing to cover?

LT: His main computer. So many little bits and pieces, with junk
pieces of paper all over. I had to get them exactly right. Fortunately
I have a lot of obsessive-compulsive friends.

BT: Sounds like a compliment they might return. Were there any
objects that you left uncovered?

LT: We left a single picture of his girlfriend and the spine of
a book Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends. (See
sidebar.)

BT: Was the book an inspiration? Or a coincidence?

LT: A coincidence. We didn't notice it until we were three-quarters
of the way through the books.

BT: So the book was an open challenge to continue the saga.

LT: I consider it a personal challenge to him to get me back.
In fact, I would like to use this opportunity to challenge him again,
if you don't mind. "Hey Goose! You can't top this!" Thank you.

BT: Sure. One thing we at The Black Table love to do is encourage
good, healthy transcontinental vengeance

The Fine Art of Foiling.

When Chris "Goose" Kirk entered
his apartment for the first time in 2004, it was covered with foil. Words
fail to describe the mind-blowing scene he encountered, but luckily, we
have the pictures to fill in the next 30,000 words or so.

They covered his whole kitchen...

...his entire toilet -- and bathroom, too -- and all of his CDs, individually.

They foiled every single book, one at a time and the roll of toilet paper,
which was re-rolled after being foiled...

...and his dress shoes, the change in the change bowl...

...the crap under the bed and every single cup in the house. Yes, Lucas
Trenice went to great lengths to play a prank on Chris Kirk...

...and they got him good.

Photos courtesy: Lucas Trerice

between nerds. Do you think he'll take the challenge and prank you back?

LT: I hope so. I mean, if I didn't use the opportunity to prank
him, then he would have rightly considered it to be an insult.

BT: Airtight logic, that.

LT: You have to care about someone to put that much energy into
something. If he doesn't do anything, then I'll feel bad.

BT: How did he react?

LT: I wasn't there for Goose's reaction. I wanted him to be completely
alone to enhance the alienation. From what I understand, he was initially
calm and unresponsive. Then he started laughing and had to find someone
to show it to.

BT: What are some other pranks you've done?

LT: Most of my projects have been either movies or social experiments.

BT: Social experiments?

LT: Well, just before I moved here, I was lamenting to my friends
that, just before a person moves they generally fall in love, but have
to leave the person behind. I began complaining that I didn't even have
that heartbreak, so my friends begged me to put out flyers around town
and then they paraded me around. There are a few pictures at MeetLuke.com.

BT: What do you think of MTV shows like Punk'd, Boiling Points,
etc. Is the current 'prank' craze trivializing the real labors of love
that more dedicated nerds like you engage in? Do you bemoan the commercialization
of roommate gags? (Note: I'll admit I had the pleasure of working on "Boiling
Points," whose "jokes" seem to be nothing more than sexually
harassing women in the street and then rewarding the ones who don't defend
themselves).

LT: I haven't bothered to steal cable at my condo yet, so I don't
watch TV. Gotta study. But without having seen any of them, I would say
I approve. Non-harmful messing with people equals comedy gold.

BT: Have you ever played a joke that went very wrong, or is there
one in particular you wish you hadn't played?

LT: Well, one summer at a neuroscience internship in high school
I had a fair sized mob combing the woods for me on the last day, but I
managed to evade them and my well-deserved comeuppance.

BT: OK. What's next?

LT: No specific plans yet. I tend to work impulsively. I would
like to make a short film documenting the life and assassination of Trotsky
using the Smurfs.

BT: That, plus you mentioned you've got a filmed reenactment of
WWII as a food fight and something called "Luke vs. the Root Beer
Float of Doom." So why dental school then? Why not film school?

LT: Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a scientist. I used
to wear a clip on bow tie and give lectures during lunch in high school,
and everyone thought I'd be a professor. Then I had the aforementioned
neuroscience internship, which was very prestigious. In a nutshell, it
was horrid. I decided that I'd rather die starving in a gutter than risk
working with people like that for the rest of my life.

BT: I see. Dentistry is a good compromise.

LT: I decided long ago that I could never make money doing what
I love, because the stress of making it profitable would ruin it for me.

BT: There was certainly no danger in profiting from this prank.

LT: I would rather do something that I like and can take pride
in, but will fund my side projects. Dentistry could afford me the luxury
of doing crap like this all the time, and funding my friends' projects.
I want to do zombie movies, personally.

BT: Right. Because the relationship of a zombie to the living
is not too different than that of a geek to the rest of the world, so
this might be a subject close to your heart. Zombies are terrifying, but
in reality people are just reacting to themselves in an altered state,
since we all have a little geek inside us. Is that close?